TCrafty

Just got a Kadet Sr. kit that I'm going to be building with my dad. We're thinking of making it a tail-dragger and I want to move the rudder back and bring it down over the tail of the plane and we're going to be separating the elevator to allow for this. Anyone who has had a Kadet knows how the rudder doesn't go past the horizontal stabilizer. How has everyone who has done this modification allowed for this fact? Did you simply move the vert stab/rudder back or lengthen the vert stab and move the rudder back? We'll be increasing the length of the rudder so I don't want to have it look too long. Any help is appreciated and pics are worth a thousand words!

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

That mod will work fine. With the rudder extended to the bottom of the fuse, that allows you to drive the tailwheel off the bottom of the rudder, using a double horn on the rudder and connecting the tailwheel's double horn using springs. Be sure to divide the elevator far enough apart to allow for full travel on the rudder without hitting the elevator halves.

The alternative is to leave the tail as-is, and drive the tailwheel using a separate control rod off the rudder servo. It's the easier way to do it, but I like bashing things, and modifying the tail will at least make your kadet look a bit different. I have the kit (Kadet Sr.) and plan to modify the tail as you describe, but am going further and changing the outline as well, going to make a "poor man's" Helio Courier out of mine.

Here's what I have done on my plans. You can see that I not only lengthened the rudder, I also lengthened the V-stab and decreased its chord, too. I maintaine the same overall area of both. It's kind of hard to pick out, but if you look at the darker lines, you can see the new shape. The green lines are the actual mating lines, the V-stab will mount directly over the H stab, and the leading edges will meet, and then there will be that small transition on the V-stab added. I'll prbably drive my tailwheel off the rudder.

I plan on many other changes on my Senior, such as stretching the wing about 6 inches and removing most of the dihedral, addition of 3/4 span flaps, short ailerons, a tow release and "bomb bay", and provisions to mount a video system.

TCrafty

Khodges,

It sounds like we are both on the same track. I just spoke to my dad after posting and he has a Dynaflight Decathlon and we were noticing that the planes are pretty much the same size as far as the fuse is concerned. We're thinking of building the Decathlon tail and fusing it onto the fuse of the Senior. He already modified the wing by adding some more wing area on my original SR. and also removed all but a little dihedral. It had barn door ailerons and this one will have the same. Here's a pic of the first Sr. I always loved the Stinson Reliant so we scalloped the wing a little to resemble it. Flew great.

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

You guys obviously know your stuff when it comes to mods, that's a great looking Sr. This must be one of the most-bashed planes ever. It has plenty of wing, and the lines are simple and easy to change. I am using the aluminum gear from a 4-Star 60 for my main gear, will probably use the "scale' gear from Sig for the tailwheel, like the one that comes with the Cub kits, has leaf springs, or DuBro also has a nice looking tailwheel, it's an old Klett design. What engine will you put on the Sr.? I'm going to completely overwhelm mine with a .91 Saito, since I plan to use it as a towplane and camera platform.

The Decathlon tail will look good. I have a Pilot Super-D, (1/4 scale) and until I had a radio failure, it was my 2nd favorite plane.

Weekendflyer

My Feedback: (3)

What did with mine was to make a tiller bar on the tail wheel and just run fishing line up to the rudder servo use a full arm and conect to the ends , which made it possible to use stock configuration ,you will realy like it as a tail dragger good luck

TCrafty

Khodges,

I've printed out your mods and I was over at dad's today just comparing the plans. amazingly, the horizontal stab for the Decathlon is almost identical in size with more control surface area and a counter-balance whereas the senior had more stabilizer area and a full width elevator. I think the Decathlon mod will allow for more control (which is what I'm looking for) and will make the senior look much better, IMO. I really like your vert. stab design and we had contemplated something very similar as one of the options. We've thought of just shortening the rear of the fuse by about an inch and increasing the vert stab section until the rear of the fuse, then running the rudder down behind the fuse like you have here.

I was thinking of increasing the chord of the rudder as well, much like my Giles 202. Here's my thinking (and I'm definitely open for suggestions or criticism), with the limited chord of the rudder, I felt that I needed to really swing my rudder to get a lot of control out of it when relying on the propwash. Since the rudder swung quite a bit, it seemed that at certain situations, it was starting to act as an air brake and the plane would dip excessively. I'm thinking that by increasing the chord, I can get more control without swinging the rudder as much, therefore the force would be enough to get the desired effect without acting as a brake since it wouldn't be swung so far to one side. Is my thinking flawed or does this have some merit?

In looking at your rudder assembly, I was thinking of doing something similar but still bring the lower trailing edge of the rudder back about another inch or so. It'd be nice to get a solid knife edge out of the plane once it's finished.

I had an OS 91 4-stroke on my other plane and will probably go with either a 91 or maybe that new 115 Saito. I had a 15X8 MAS prop on my other one and loved it. The grunt of a 115 with the wieght of a 91 is a hard thing to pass up. I'm thinking of changing out the motor mount in mine for a different design also. That should handle the extra torque. I think that I'm going to be starting a thread on the buildup soon. Once I can get everything together to start on it. It might take a while to complete it but I'll document all the changes and issues along the way.

foodstick

If you do alot of searching here and on the web you will find a guy that has bashed about every possible version of a sig senior, or seniorita.. I think he did high wing,low wing, mid wing, twin tail,v tail,biplane,tail draggers , you name it..all I can remember was that he had a trailer full of them..wish I had the link for you... there is also a very nice twin senior kitbash somewhere on the multi engine forum.

TCrafty

I think I've seen posts from the fellow you are speaking about. Some of his planes couldn't have much of an original Senior left in them! I"ve checked around quite a bit and there's some amazing kit bashed planes out there.